The Grouch's Trash Pile [Baldur's Gate 3]

Finished my house!



More images here.

It's plot 47, ward 23 subdivision, Empyreum, on Cactuar. Come take a look! and never mind how 2/3rds of the basement is blocked off bc I gave up on it.

 

Goooorgeous O_O

 

This image of FFXIV characters as Disco Elysium skills has been giving me great joy today. (Mildly spoilery for FFXIV, but it's most likely to elicit a ??? reaction at worst.)

Spoiler: For example (HW spoilers)

I showed this to J and he was like "huh, why is Haurchefant Reaction Speed?" I very cheerfully told him that that's spoilers and very quickly diverted attention to Estinien being Hand/Eye Coordination. Hildy being Inland Empire is pretty great, too.

Original thread for the image is here but beware, it has spoilers through Endwalker.

 

Two nights' worth of insomnia is very Not Fun, but I'm holding on okay... at least right now. It's only 10 til 11 and I am desperately desirous of sleep, though, so this is going to be a rough day.

Also finally thought up a backstory for Mimir that isn't 75% 'and then stuff happened'; I've had an idea of him as a techy, mechanics-oriented guy, the sort of person who IRL would repair and ride motorcycles, and came up with this:

As an adolescent, Mimir left the Golmorre Jungle not out of his own will, but out of necessity; after an injury led to a raging infection his master, desperate to save him, pressed him upon a traveling merchant. The merchant reluctantly took Mimir into his care and delivered him to Rabanastre, where he recieved care that saved his life, but was also pressed into the service of the merchant. Mimir did not enjoy being an errand boy, but through being tasked to repair damaged merchandise he discovered his mechanical aptitude. Due to his training as a forest guardian, he also served as a guard for the merchant.

Garlemald invaded before he could free himself of the merchant, and soon he found himself repairing actual magitek. He eventually was pressed into military service, and although the Garlean officers were loathe to let someone 'barely better than a beastman' touch their precious magitek, the bulk of his service was spent as a mechanic. He hated every moment, and when he was sent to the front lines, he made his escape the moment he was able, slipping into the shadows of a nearby forest as easily as if it were the jungle of his birth.

He evaded the grasp of the Imperials and followed rumors that the famed Cid nan Garlond had defected to Eorzea. When he reached this strange new land, he promptly sought Cid out and joined the Ironworks as a junior engineer. There he stayed for the next fifteen years, through the Seventh Umbral Calamity and the years following, until Garlemald threatened Eorzea again. This time, Mimir decided it was wise to pursue a more martial option, so he set off for Limsa Lominsa to take up the axe and train his now-rusty fighting skills.
​

It's very rough and needs refinement, but the important points here are that he started working for Ironworks shortly after its foundation and continued until he felt the urge to kick Garlemald in the teeth.

 

I genuinely do not understand people who think the FFXIV fandom is unusually sex-oriented for a video game fandom. Are they new to the Internet or something?

 

Been playing Mimir a bit more lately, and thought up some very cool (but spoilery) backstory for him.

Spoiler: ShB and END spoilers

This character originally started off as a female Highlander based on one of my OCs, but the concept wasn't really working for me so I in ShB decided to fantasia them, and was like haha, what if I made a Jade Harley expy? I could even do a really good witch of space outfit! I designed a Highlander version and a female viera version, and ultimately decided that I didn't want to play a fandom character but I liked the appearance, so I used the viera version since I liked the animations and eventually forgot all about the whole Jade thing (obviously, because I've been like "he's a dude even if I'm stuck using a female viera model" for ages).

But recently, I've been thinking more about what Mimir's Azem would be like and how nothing was really clicking other than me gravitating toward the name Nyx rather than Hekate. I've been seeing a lot of people lately talk about Azems that are nothing like their WoLs, and that got me thinking... and suddenly I remembered my original inspiration for his appearance, and was like heeeeeeyyyy... He's got a connection to space with his surname being Mourningstar, his main jobs inclue guns, stars, and magic, I've been envisioning him as a very tech-y guy, he even wears glasses...

So his Azem was Nyx, who is basically Jade Harley in appearance and personality and very space witchy-themed. She looked a bit different -- a slightly lighter, warmer skintone, more intensely green eyes, her hair sprinkled with glimmers like little stars -- but the real difference is in personality, as while they had similar interests and inclinations, Mimir is more focused and stoic.

Aaaand just for fun I've renamed his chocobo Becquerel and am dyeing him the closest shade to radioactive green as I can get. (I'd go with white, but meh, I'd rather have the radioactive look and there's no bardings that would give me that.)

Anyway, here he is with the Tropaios Rod, which I absolutely had to have for him after this little revelation.

 

I've been wanting to write some short stories to put up on the ol' dusty writing blog (since it's going to take A While to finish any of my novels) but very tired at the thought of thinking up prompts, but fortunately a post that was originally from that writing prompt tumblr crossed my dash tonight and I was like oh yeah, that's a thing!

The prompts are often kinda dumb, but hey. The 'three random things' method I had used to generate prompts is tiresome to get anything good out of. I think I'd rather sift through the prompt blog for stuff I can work with.

 

Yes, I could be capping tomes or getting my weekly Aglaia done or farming Pandaemonium normal, but instead




I've been playing a hell of a lot of PVP. No regrets (even if it is a little silly he has the Slaughterhouse Two achievement already -- actual Iolis only got that one two days ago).

 

Me and J, earlier this evening: Man, why is it so hot in the apartment? It's only 16C outside!

J, just a little while ago: So I just noticed that the ventilation is completely off...

For some godforsaken reason, the ventilation in this apartment complex can be shut off from the utility building, even though each apartment has its own exterior entrance and does not share with other apartments but a wall, and apparently some maintenance guy doing something in there earlier must have shut it off and forgot to turn it back on... which results in the apartments turning sweltering even in cold weather.

I am so mad right now.

 

Yaaay ventilation is back

Apparently a failsafe was tripped in one of the other buildings or something. Wish we'd noticed it sooner, surprised no one else noticed it to submit a ticket about since this was, in retrospect, an issue since yesterday morning. (I'd been wondering why it was so stuffy and humid in here...)

 

Extremely over the sims fandom being whiny babies about werewolves 'looking like furries'. Maybe interrogate why your undies get in a wad at something that looks even a little bit like anthro art you've seen (or heard about) rather than whine incessantly about it? (lol as if that would ever happen, gamers love whining about games more than they like playing them.)

 

A lot of the things people complain about TS4 getting wrong were just as much of a problem in previous iterations, if not moreso (like bugs -- the amount of legitimately game breaking bugs that never got official fixes in TS2 is staggering). TS4 definitely has its problems -- relationships are weirdly frictionless, the world is super safe except for if a sim has strong emotions, sims are way too easy to make happy, and personalities aren't distinct -- but it generally runs better and has more variety than TS2 and TS3 (sure, you ostensibly had more to do in TS3, but most of those things were rabbitholes), a lot of things are down to taste (babies weren't any more interesting in previous iterations and cars were just loading screens with extra steps), and some things are flat-out wrong (TS3's much vaunted open world was a big part of the reason it ran like shit, and it was devoid of life because sims were too busy travelling to be anywhere in a reasonable amount of time, and it was UGLY because the lighting engine fucking sucked outdoors). And some things are non-problems, like elders 'not having enough to do' -- they aren't decepit like TS2 elders were and can do more (like hold down jobs) than TS2 elders. Maybe they lack in stereotypically elder-related activities? But, frankly, that's a non-problem. The older I get the more obvious it is to me that old folks don't actually stop doing the same shit they were doing when they were younger, they just can't afford to be as risky about it.

Yes, I'm complaining about sims fandom because I'm avoiding the other things I have to do, what of it? >_>

 

But hey, look at how cool this shit is. Can make scarewolves AND sparklewolves!

 

Sometimes having trouble getting shit done is executive function problems, but sometimes it's straight up avoidance issues. *sighs deeply at brain*

 

One of my avoidance problems is this UX design course; I find my brain skittering away from it when I encounter exercises that I think might be 'difficult' because I'm unclear on exactly what they want (even though it ends up not really being hard, and it's okay to make mistakes because I'm learning). I also have an extreme allergy to corporate-speak and brain wants to climb the walls to get away from it whenever I counter it, because it's so fake. The hyperbolic cheeriness and everything having to be THE BEST AND GREATEST all the time makes me want to throw a fit.

Now that I've got a better idea of why I've been avoidant about it I'm having a better time focusing, but nothing is going to make me not loathe the fake plastic smile of corporate-speak.

 

... of course, it doesn't help that Gordon starts whining at me for attention whenever I'm in the middle of something. And J plays random loud videos. I have got to start going to bed and waking up earlier so I have more quiet time to work.

 

Well, I switched gears to writing instead (despite the whining cat -- I can take them outside later) and I guess I've been excited to write this bit because I kept going for four hours and got around 2500 words. I can usually manage around 500 in a day before my brain fizzles and craps out, so like, damn! I'm pleased.

I had to stop to shower and start dinner (... lol, oops, didn't mean to sit there in pajamas all afternoon) and I'm not sure if I'm really up to starting again tonight, but hey.

 

Aw, nuts. The Sims 4 update broke custom sliders, and possibly skin defaults and custom skin details. There's a lot of stuff I can live without, but not my aesthetic mods! ... Not that this is a huge deal right now, I've been trying to play and not feeling it so it's fine for me to wait a while until there's known ways to fix it, but I really like using CAS for working out OC designs and had some plans. T_T OH WELL...

 

Never going to be over sims players whining about there not being enough fashion options for men and then it turns out the shit they want is more of the same normie clothes the game comes with, but even more bland and neutrals only.

It was a little more reasonable back with Sims 2 when everything in the game for men was oversized and baggy, but now??? I guess when your conception of men's fashion is as boring and basic and sack-like as possible, though, Sims 4 variety of colorful, fitted options just won't do. (There could still stand to be more, but.)

 

It's like "This creator makes so much good male cc!" and then they have 50 different recolor sets of the same oversized jumper.